Guild Wars 2

Aeoldyn: (Mesmer): Hey, what kind of rotation do you use for your staff?
Vaerdyn: (Necro): 12345 =D
Aeoldyn: So.. You just faceroll. -_-
Vaerdyn: No, there’s just no real strategy to use with the staff.
Aeoldyn: So… You just faceroll. -_-
Vaerdyn: Well… Yeah.

PLEASE tell me that my Necro friend is wrong and there IS a properway to use the staff. After that little debate, I brought my normally PvE friend into sPvP so he could learn to understand the importance of using the right conditions, dodges(he rolls just to move faster) and attacks at the right time. He wanted to go Conditionmancer the way he is in PvE, (scepter-dagger/Staff) but can’t seem to get any bleeds up past 7-8 stacks.
I’m not too knowledgeable on Necro builds, but I’m sure there has to be more damage he can do besides 7 bleeds and weakness/chill/fear.

Please help… Constructively.

After a while facing other players he will learn to use his abilities at the right time. I used to faceroll my staff abilities too, then over time I slowly learned to save 4 and 5 for the right situation.

As for bleeds…your friend should find a good rotation that will help him keep bleeds up. Sigil of Earth procs bleeds on crit, that’s very useful for the necro condition build. Dark Path stacks 3 bleeds, dagger 5 stacks bleeds, Weakening Shroud trait stacks some extra bleed, as does staff 2 and the Mark of Blood trait. Not to mention scepter 1 and 2. So there are lots of good tools for bleeds, your friend just needs to work out cooldowns and things like that.

I don’t play conditionmancer myself, so hopefully other forum members can give you more answers.

There are some “Combos” to get bleeds up:
Staff 3→dodge in(with trait)→switch weapons(with geomancy sigil)→8 bleedings
Staff 3→DS 2→weapon Switch (with geomancy) moving a bit forward→dodging back(with trait)→11 bleedings
If you do this you can follow up with scepter skills to get to ~15 stacks very fast. Using this combos is teh key to killing heavy anti condition builds like ele, you have to keep an eye on their cooldowns and choose the right timing. Also choose carefully if you can afford to use your dodges to apply additional bleedings, sometimes it’s not exactly the best thing to do
Regarding teh Staff: use 2 and 3 freely, but 4 and 5 are too valuable to just waste, so you should keep them for later when you need them.
I hope that helped, if you have additional questions just ask.

Well… I don’t come from an Spvp background, but in the regulard world, I can maintain 20+ bleeds rotating from staff to sceptor and back fairly easily. Against people generally 12-15 is the max they will let you get on before the cleanse or run.

As far as staff in general, if you are playing conditions, the staff is not your “go to” weapon. You should be on sceptor always to start because Scept 2 is the most powerful effect you get. Aoe 3 stacks of bleed (more with barbed prec, and Earth sigil). And if you use dagger OH, dagger 5 gives two more plus the weakness.

At this poing you should use sceptor 3, though it doesn’t hit hard, just for the life force, and BIP plus dagger 4. Swap over to staff for 2/3. If you have conditions on you, I would suggest using staff 4, and if they are aggressively attacking I would go ahead and use 5. Now you can hop into DS to chain a fear if needed, interrupt a heal, and drop DS 2 for the chill and bleeds. Hop out of DS and staff 2 should be back up, use it and swap back to sceptor.

I get what people say about not wasting mark 4, but as a condition build you cannot just sit on staff, or use staff swap only when you need 4/5. You need the 2/3 abilties to be used as often as possible, meaning if you save 4 and 5 on the staff, and swap away, you cannot get them back for 10 seconds. Sometimes 4 is worth it just for the blast finisher ability, and 5 is worth it for an interrupt of a strong attack skill or area deny. What you want to avoid is being on sceptor, with DS fear on cooldown, and your swap skill down. That situation means you have no chance to interrupt a heal.

If you have dangerous conditions on, and you are low HP it isn’t the worst idea to face roll your keyboard 2-5 when staff is up. What you don’t want to do is blow 2-5 at the opening of a fight for no reason other than to put them on CD.

combo fields… sigh.

Blood is power is fairly good at stacking some extra bleeds quickly (provided you’re able to throw the bleeds you get yourself on your target as well, with for instance staff #4).
I really like the corruption line in general for W3, there’s some very good moves in there for group combat.

That said conditionmancer has some major drawbacks in W3;
- There’s loads of AoE condition cleansing about and your bleeds just don’t stack that fast (and without easy access to burn/confusion as well it’s hard to get decent dps from conditions against players).
- Burst is King, you never want a fight to drag on.
- you’re nerfing your own DS.
- condition duration is far more useful in a lot of situations, because as a necro you mainly want your debuffs (chill/weakness/cripple) to be up as much as possible.
Unfortunately condition duration was added to the power line for some incomprehensible reason.

In PvE:
Staff – 2, 3, 8(BiP), 7(Epidemic), 4, 2, 5 – switch to S/D roll, 2, 5.

Not 100% of the time – depends how much I’m paying attention – but generally this is my rotation.
Greater Marks, Staff Mastery, Sigil of Earth in my sceptre, Mark of Blood dodge trait.

2 starts the bleed chain, 3 keeps the pack clustered and adds poison, 8 goes without saying, same with 7, 4 transfers the self inflicted conditions (debatable as to whether or not hitting 4 after Epidemic is worth it but usually in a group, other physical DPS classes appreciate just a bit more vuln.), due to the 20% less recharge rate I get in another 2, 5 pushes them back and interrupts any casts whilst laying the way for the switch, roll into the group, 2 cripples to prevent the pack spreading further, 5 to finish then retreat.

The bleeds overall fluctuate but this maintains control over the pack whilst also keeping up constant 12-20 bleeds.

Rennoko.5731:

Well… I don’t come from an Spvp background, but in the regulard world, I can maintain 20+ bleeds rotating from staff to sceptor and back fairly easily. Against people generally 12-15 is the max they will let you get on before the cleanse or run.

As far as staff in general, if you are playing conditions, the staff is not your “go to” weapon. You should be on sceptor always to start because Scept 2 is the most powerful effect you get. Aoe 3 stacks of bleed (more with barbed prec, and Earth sigil). And if you use dagger OH, dagger 5 gives two more plus the weakness.

At this poing you should use sceptor 3, though it doesn’t hit hard, just for the life force, and BIP plus dagger 4. Swap over to staff for 2/3. If you have conditions on you, I would suggest using staff 4, and if they are aggressively attacking I would go ahead and use 5. Now you can hop into DS to chain a fear if needed, interrupt a heal, and drop DS 2 for the chill and bleeds. Hop out of DS and staff 2 should be back up, use it and swap back to sceptor.

I get what people say about not wasting mark 4, but as a condition build you cannot just sit on staff, or use staff swap only when you need 4/5. You need the 2/3 abilties to be used as often as possible, meaning if you save 4 and 5 on the staff, and swap away, you cannot get them back for 10 seconds. Sometimes 4 is worth it just for the blast finisher ability, and 5 is worth it for an interrupt of a strong attack skill or area deny. What you want to avoid is being on sceptor, with DS fear on cooldown, and your swap skill down. That situation means you have no chance to interrupt a heal.

If you have dangerous conditions on, and you are low HP it isn’t the worst idea to face roll your keyboard 2-5 when staff is up. What you don’t want to do is blow 2-5 at the opening of a fight for no reason other than to put them on CD.

Nicely said.

If you trait it your build properly switch back and forth between scepter and staff as well as use foods that increase condition duration you can stack 25 bleeds.